I’m not sure where this came from, the
land of randomness, I suppose. Dedicated to everyone who has ever played with
their food. This is a stand alone story that places anywhere in the Voyage
timeline.

Colors

Sharon h.

~<<>>~

Chip Morton bounced down the stairwell, a slight smile on
his face and in an obnoxiously good mood. He found Lee Crane, Seaview's captain
and his best friend, already at the plot table looking over the night's log
entries. Not that there was a lot to look over. It was day three of a three-week
cruise and so far everything was calm and quiet, probably the reason for the
exec's good mood.

Lee glanced up as Morton sidled up to the plot table,
already eying the huge orange bag of Reese's Pieces, opened with its contents
spilled across one corner of the table. Lee reached over and snagged a few,
popping them into his mouth and crunching for effect.

“Whose candy?” Chip asked and promptly began picking out
individual, tiny yellow candies. Just the yellow ones. The brown and orange
pieces he left.

Lee raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as Chip
continued to sort the candies, accumulating a neat pile of yellow. “O'Brien
brought them in. He said his sister has a membership with one of those
warehouse clubs. She sends him bags of these things and he decided to share
with the crew. He dropped another bag off in the crew’s quarters. Ah,
Chip...what are you doing?

Chip grinned. “What does it look like I'm doing? Separating
the yellows from the rest.” With that declaration, he grabbed a handful of his
sorted peanut butter treats and tossed them into his mouth. He crunched
contentedly.

“Why? They all taste the same,” Lee said, reaching for a few
more.

“It's all about the power of yellow. It augments my blond
powers of Executive-ness.”

Lee nearly choked on his mouth full of candy. “That's the
dumbest thing I've ever heard. Beside there's no such word as Executive-ness.”

Chip popped a few more yellow spheres into his mouth. “How
would you know? You're not blond.”

“Thank goodness.”

“You can have the brown ones. Augment the brunet powers of
Captain-ness.”

Lee was trying not to laugh at the insane line of absurdity.
“So if the admiral asks, what color does he get?”

Chip crunched a few more candies before answering. “Now
we've got options. Since I'm blond and blue-eyed, yellow of course, and the
blue ones. You can have the brown ones still and the green ones. Bring out the
green flecks in your eyes the girls all go goofy over.”

“And the admiral gets...”

“Oh, he's lucky. As blue-eyed redhead he gets the orange and
red ones. Of course, I would have to share the blue ones with him.”

“Of course. I should have thought about that,” Lee replied
weakly. Chip had gone off the deep end, he was positive of it. With a wandering
eye he glanced down at the charts, wondering if maybe they had passed some
weird vent imitating a previously unknown gas, or maybe there was a sunken
pirate ship nearby...

Chip continued to crunch, trying not to grin at Lee's
perplexed expression. That's when Sharkey's voice squawked over the intercom.

“Chief Sharkey to Mister Morton.”

Swallowing his mouthful of candy, Chip grabbed the mike.
“This is the exec. Go ahead Chief.”

“Sir, we've got a small situation down here in the Missile
room, you might need to come down here.”

“I'm on my way, Chief.”Chip hung up the mike and grabbed up a handful of button-shaped candies
for the road and slapped Lee on the back with his free hand.